you're never going home

[alexkapranos]

Characters: Alex Kapranos & Annie Cartwright
Rating: R for language & drunkenhigh!alex
Time Period: Modern
Location: On top the castle roof
Relative Date: Night-time
Status: Open

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[anniecartwright]

Annie had woken from an already-fitful sleep during which she'd had one awful, fragmented dream after another. If she'd had been in any frame of mind for self-analysis, she'd have said her dreams looked like Dalí paintings and that she needed to start going to sleep before she was exhausted for them to stop. But she wasn't and they probably wouldn't

[alexkapranos]

The woman's words shook him and the bottle slipped carelessly from his hands into an uneventful mess on the ground. "Jesus," he gasped and turned to face her. "Hey. Who's, uh who're you?" He squinted his eyes, challenging them to focus. Well, it was girl, definitely. She seemed concerned, maybe. He hoped he hadn't woken her, but really what other possibility was there. Well, fuck. What if I hit her with a bottle.

[anniecartwright]

"I'm Annie," she said kindly, beckoning him away from the edge and trying to keep herself from being blown over the wall herself. She looked at him hard. From this distance, it was hard to tell if he was drunk or if he'd just been crying, but either way, the way he was swaying so close to the edge worried her. "Come away from there... um, what's your name, love?"

[alexkapranos]

Annie. Annie was a good name. It looked like it might suit her.

Alex squeezed his eyes closed and rubbed his hands along his face in an attempt to wipe away some of his confusion. He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he re-opened them, but he found himself thoughtlessly obeying the girl's request, anyway. "Oh, man, Annie, I'm just I'm really sorry," he said as he stumbled off the ledge back to the safety of flat ground. "It's not like... what it seems or anything." He tripped over himself again and found it easier to give in and sit down rather than fight to stand.

[anniecartwright]

Annie literally breathed a sigh of relief when the man was back on solid ground. She hunkered down beside him, not quite sitting. "No need to apologize," she said, smiling kindly. "You're all right now, aren't you?" She peered more closely at him, guessing he was miles and miles from all right.

[alexkapranos]

"Mm. Yeah. Got carried away." He got carried away often enough, reeling into a horrible suffocating feeling of despair during his less than stellar moments. But it wasn't typical for a wave of it to grip him before getting pissed.

Alex looked at her and when he looked at her, he stared at her. He was in awe and right now Annie seemed more angel than girl. "I came here, uh, looking for someone and you know, you know well as you know, now I can't leave. Bastard's not even here." The irony of that made him chuckle.

[anniecartwright]

"It happens to the best of us," she said sympathetically, patting his forearm. When it became clear he was in no condition to stand, she sat down, listening to what he had to say, because if anyone needed a shoulder right now, it was clearly this man.

"You came here to find someone?" she repeated stupidly. She'd done the same, and it hadn't turned out for her either. "I'm sorry. He could still show up." She glanced out over the rampart, looking into the middle distance. "More people do every day." With a small sigh, she looked back to him. "What's your name, then? Maybe you could... leave a message on the telephone we were given, and your... friend can find you if he arrives."

[alexkapranos]

Alex blushed when she touched him. His lips had been in a permanent frown since he arrived, but finally he felt them parting into an awkward smile. "Suppose he could." There was no reason to be negative. "But, yeah, I've been looking for him for weeks. Not just here, other places. I feel like, I don't know. Like he just vanished? And now what the hell's this place?"

A slight breeze picked up and Alex realized he was half naked. He might have cared, he wasn't sure. It might have made for a bad first impression, but that usually depended on the company. "Alex," he answered and cleared his throat. He felt a wave of dizziness returning, but that was no reason to be rude. "Good to meet you, Annie. And oh, phones, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I looked at that, I couldn't get the blasted thing to work. I nearly chucked it into the moat."

[anniecartwright]

Annie shrugged, dropping her gaze to a far corner of the bit of roof they were perched on. "We don't know, none of us." She shook her head, laughing a little sadly. "Most of us were... tricked into coming, really. You're the first person I've met who's come on purpose." She thought it was a little noble he came looking for his friend,and she guessed they must've been close.

"Who is it you're looking for, then? Maybe I can help." Not that Annie was in any condition to be of any particular help to anyone - she'd barely left her room since... well, since, even after Alex Drake's bizarre message, but that didn't mean she couldn't try.

[alexkapranos]

"Ah, his name's Nick." Alex took a deep breath, he felt so tired-- his pseudo-energy was wearing off and the harsh realism of the here and now wore him. "McCarthy," he added, after a moment of realizing just how many people out there were named Nick. "Oh and hey, hey the um, mobiles, you got one? Do you know the password then?"

[anniecartwright]

"Nick McCarthy," she repeated, making a mental note to keep an eye out. She nodded. "Yes - I think we all have. The passcode is..." Annie faltered a moment, thinking back. "It's two-nine-one-oh, I think." She mentally dialed the number and then nodded. "Yes, that's it. You can send universal messages to everyone, or if you know someone's private number, you can send messags right to them. As far as I can tell, it doesn't work like a usual telephone." Of course, Annie'd been wrong before.

She nodded back the way she'd come. "Maybe we should go inside, yeah? 'S a bit cold." Getting to her feet, she offered her hand. She hoped she could convince him to take some water and then lay down before he got it into his head to start drinking again, but she wasn't counting on it. Alex seemed like an experienced drinker to her, so he'd undoubtedly be the sort to stay up until he passed out entirely.

[alexkapranos]

"2910," he repeated, already frustrated he was going to forget this within the next several minutes. "2910, okay. Yeah." He listened to her explain about the phones, too, but it all sounded so convoluted and foreign. What the hell was going on here? What was he doing here on the roof of some old castle? This had been a very bad night, the worst he's had in a long time.

Alex smiled up at her. Normally, he would have scoffed at such assistance, but it was a refreshing change of pace. "Hmmm," he mumbled in agreement and grabbed her hand. "Yeah, it's cold, yeah." How did she know that?

With her help, he pulled himself up. After that, he felt utterly useless.

[anniecartwright]

"C'mon then, Alex," she said kindly, leading him carefully back to the archway that served as roof access. "Do you have bedroom chosen yet?" she asked once they were safely out of the wind. She really hoped he had, because she wasn't sure what she could give him in the way of a shirt. He was rather... narrow enough one her blouses would do in a pinch, but she didn't want to rob the poor think completely of his dignity.

[alexkapranos]

It was a good thing Annie was there to lead him back because the more he moved the more disorientated he felt. He was sure now this had to be a dream.

A bedroom? Jesus. What.

"No, I left my things out in the... whatever, suppose it's parlour or some god damn thing," he managed finally, rubbing his red eyes with the back of his palm. He decided he'd come back for his shirt later; he liked that shirt and damn it was one of a kind and he'd hate to part with it.

[anniecartwright]

Annie nodded, making a snap decision against which her feminine intuition railed but one her instincts as a copper agreed with. She led him in the direction of the bedroom she'd chosen, finding the door left standing open in her haste to get to the roof. "We can go for your things in the morning then, yeah?" That was if the bloke was in any fit state come morning. Until then, Annie'd give him her bed and keep an eye on him that he didn't aspirate or worse in the night.

Once inside, she cleared her throat and gestured toward the rumpled bed. "Go on and sit. I'll get you something to drink. How's that, then?" she asked, her tone kind but businesslike. Without waiting for Alex's answer, Annie disappeared into the en suite with the ewer.

[alexkapranos]

Alex followed her blindly. Whatever she was doing it had to be better than whatever the hell he'd gotten up to tonight. He stumbled over to the bed and sat down on it, gracelessly. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he mumbled, a hand over his eyes. It felt good to just sit. A sizable part of the paranoia and anxiety he experienced on the roof slowly began to wash away and he stared out at the wall in front of him.